(Kochi, feb 09, 2018):The State government on Thursday informed the Kerala High Court that the pension arrears of KSRTC pensioners and their pension up to July would be paid by the State government.

The State government submitted that steps would be taken to clear the pension dues before March 2018. These decisions were taken at a meeting convened by Chief Minster Pinarayi Vijayan recently, the government pleader told the court.

The government made the submissions when a writ petition filed by P.A. Antony and other retired employees of the KSRTC seeking a directive to pay them pension dues came up for hearing before the court.

Meanwhile, in an affidavit filed in response to the petition, the government said that in order to improve the efficiency of the KSRTC management, the government had appointed two chartered accountants and a Deputy General Manager (Finance and Administration) on contract basis.

In fact, the government had already directed the KSRTC to hand over the charge of Executive Director (Administration) to the new Deputy General Manger (Finance and Administration) and to deploy the Executive Director (Administration) to any of the three zones Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, or Kozhikode.

The affidavit said the State Budget 2018 had proposals for restructuring and improving the financial condition of the KSRTC. Even though the government had no direct liability to pay salary and pension, it had already provided the corproation ?685 crore in the current financial year alone. Besides, the schedules were restructured and human resource scientifically distributed based on the recommendations of Susheel Khanna who had been appointed to study the restructuring of the KSRTC.

It was expected that after the completion of the financial restructuring, the KSRTC would be able to pay salary and pensions promptly. Discussions regarding financial restructuring were in the final stage, the affidavit said.